The Emperor's Men 8 Read online

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  List of characters

  Copyright © 2021 by Atlantis Verlag Guido Latz,

  Bergstraße 34, 52222 Stolberg (Germany)

  Cover © Timo Kümmel

  Editor: Rob Bignell

  eBook Production: André Piotrowski

  ISBN 978-3-86402-787-1

  www.atlantis-verlag.de

  1

  Aritomo’s right hand trembled. It was sticky with blood and stank. He had to make an effort not to drop the knife. The man in front of him gurgled. The blood poured out of the cut carotid artery with force, the metallic smell was numbing. The man winced again, his legs hit the ground, his heels scraped the dusty floor, then he lay still.

  Aritomo dropped his right hand. Once again, a conscious decision was necessary not to let the knife’s slippery handle fall out of your hand. The dead man in front of him had a contorted expression that relaxed slowly.

  Steps from the outside. Then another man stood in the doorway. He did not attack, did not assault sleepers in the dark of the night, did not try to kill him with a murder instrument reminiscent of a garotte. One of the guards. One of the good guys. Aritomo felt the relief as it flowed through his body and finally washed the knife from his hand. It fell to the ground, and both men’s eyes were on the corpse for a moment.

  “My lord Aritomo Hara!”

  “Here,” said the latter in a weak voice and took a step back toward the place from where he’d just been brutally woken. He wasn’t feeling well. Not good at all.

  “Are you unharmed?”

  The Japanese involuntarily grabbed his neck and touched the thin graze. He was hurt, but it would heal. His quick reaction had saved him from worse. Death had to wait, at least tonight. His demise had come very, very close to him, however, and his cold breath made him shiver all over despite the warm night.

  “I’m okay. Are there more?”

  “He was the only one.”

  The Mayan warrior stood waiting in the room, looked down at the dead man again, whose outline could be seen well in the glow of the torch that the guard was holding in the air.

  “I know this man. He is a servant of Xicoc, a man who belongs to the court. The King must know about it!”

  A statement uttered without any significant emotion. As if he hadn’t expected anything else. Aritomo looked at his right hand, drying red, and moved his fingers as if he had to find out whether they could still be moved despite the sticky covering.

  “Yes,” said Aritomo softly. “But he should be taken away.”

  “I will take care of that. My lord …”

  “What?”

  Aritomo’s response was more rash than expected, but the warrior didn’t seem to take it badly.

  “The security guard in front of the house … your companion … he’s dead.”

  Aritomo took a deep breath. He had feared it. There was no other explanation for this incident. He didn’t want to look at the victim, but he had to.

  “Show me.”

  The warrior lead the way. Aritomo climbed over the body, felt his bare feet get wet with the blood, and followed outside. The house had been made available to the time travelers so that they could finally escape the tightness of the boat. They had organized security themselves, but apparently had not expected to be attacked on friendly ground just a week after their move.

  Hubris was the right word for this. And as always, hubris was quickly punished.

  Aritomo finally faced the dead man, and conflicting feelings tortured him. Of course, he knew the man by name, a sailor named Kato, a simple, an obedient soldier. His neck showed deep wounds where the garotte had overpowered him, his tongue hung out of his mouth, and his eyes were wide open. Aritomo leaned down and closed his eyelids. They were so few, so terribly few. Every dead crew member was an irreplaceable loss.

  Aritomo also felt unfairly treated. An absurd, almost silly emotion, but yes – here in Mutal they were the honored guests who had saved the city from its enemies and who would increase it’s might to an unprecedented level. And here an assassin sneaked in, just to kill him, Aritomo, in a very targeted manner. The man who continually tried to balance Captain Inugami, the man who perceived the Mayans as primitive savages, not as a civilization with which they had to come to terms, a man who did not want them to perish in the maelstrom of history.

  Aritomo was the good one. He would not have been surprised to see an attack on Inugami.

  But he. Why he? It was definitely not fair.

  It also showed him that there was a significant difference in the way he saw himself and how he was seen from the outside. For this assassin here, he was just one of the messengers of the gods who unbalanced everything and questioned the traditional order and tradition – a dangerous course of action, since they would inevitably bring down the wrath of the gods on them, gods to whom these messengers did not seem to pray at all.

  Aritomo hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t suspected anything. He had been carefree, stupid, naive, blinded, and thus of dangerous negligence, unworthy behavior for an officer in the Imperial Japanese fleet.

  There must have been a change of mood, somewhere beneath the surface of submissive kindness, constant respect, the rush to fulfill the wishes of the visitors. It must have become too much for someone. Aritomo knew that this was the case with the King of Mutal, the young Chitam. But would he provoke someone, of all people, to kill him, the first officer of the strange boat – and with him the voice of reason that had so far been able to prevent decisions that were to the detriment of the Maya?

  No, that made absolutely no sense. Someone else must have taken the initiative, a traditionalist who saw Chitam for no more than the puppet Inugami actually intended to make him. Someone who did not differentiate, but saw the threat equally manifest in all messengers. It had to be that way.

  Other crew members of the boat were now awake, came outside, rubbed their eyes, asked questions loudly, then fell silent when they saw the body of their comrade and the first officer as he leaned over and stared into the void. The Mayan warriors also had gathered, somewhat apart, in their own group, and they looked guilty. However the assassin had managed to get so close to the messengers’ quarters, it was quite likely that he had received help.

  Probably with the involvement of one of the guards.

  Aritomo looked up, glanced at the Mayan warriors, and felt suspicion and fear spread through him. He knew which way he would follow if he gave these feelings too much room. It was the path that would lead him firmly to Inugami’s side, not just driven by fantasies of omnipotence and delusions of grandeur but by constant fear, the need for security, and the false assumption that more and more power would fulfill that desire.

  It was an illusion, Aritomo was sure of that. Here, at this time, in all its apparent superiority, this fact had just been effectively demonstrated.

  “Lord, we have sent a
messenger to the King,” one of the Maya said to him.

  Aritomo nodded. “That’s good,” he said softly. He waved two more of his sailors, pointing to the dead body in front of them. “Take him with you. Clean his body and prepare him for a funeral. I’ll conduct the ceremony myself.”

  Aritomo didn’t even know if he could keep that promise. That was another point that they had never thought about before. The wealthy Maya, men and women of nobility and high priests, gained renown from elaborate tombs to entire temple buildings for the kings. Simple Maya had to be content with simple burials, not for eternity but forgotten and lost as soon as their next of kin also found death.

  But what precautions should one take for dead time travelers?

  Aritomo would now have to deal with this question. He assumed that they would bury their own people the way they were used to at home. Everything else seemed absurd to him at the moment. A difficult topic, but one that was suddenly on the agenda.

  And much earlier than he would have liked.

  “We need to tighten security,” said a voice next to him he knew well. It was the Briton Lengsley who had now appeared, looking at the men who were removing the soldier’s body, and then lurking around, as if he was afraid of another attack at any moment.

  “We could get back on the boat and nobody will attack us.”

  Aritomo said it but didn’t believe it.

  “That’s true. But nobody can stand it anymore either. The men were overjoyed when they were finally allowed to move outside. We just shouldn’t have accepted this house without dealing with all security issues ourselves. It worries me that Inugami is right, but we should move our camp to the training ground for his army. As soon as they are back, they offer us good protection, at least better than if we were targeted in the midst of the city proper.”

  “The slaves could kill us. After that they would be free,” Aritomo said quietly.

  Lengsley smiled cheerlessly.

  “Inugami has them well under control. If they kill us, they are still slaves to Mutal. I’m not sure that would improve the situation for most of them.”

  Aritomo said nothing, but silently agreed with the man. Inugami had led his Janissaries’ army on a campaign, and they hadn’t heard anything about the outcome of the attack – they didn’t even know if the captain himself was still alive. Aritomo knew that Inugami would not shy away from personal risk to gain respect beyond fear of the boat’s few guns, pistols and cannon.

  A boat that was still completely immobile on the top of Chitam’s father’s tomb, a tomb he couldn’t even use, because the boat had to be removed from there first. Whenever that would be possible. If anytime at all. It didn’t look like it.

  Aritomo watched the situation slowly calm. Some of his comrades returned to their rooms, their faces concerned, while others spoke quietly. Sleep was out of the question for him, as the excitement still dominated thinking and breathing. He had to clean himself, change clothes, eat something. A mug of chi would do him good now that the boat’s saké supplies had run out. Aritomo knew that Sarukazaki was experimenting with a still, and nobody was stopping him from spending his free time on this project. So far, however, it has been heard that the results have been of a rather unacceptable quality.

  Now, at this minute, Aritomo wouldn’t have said no to the worst from the technician’s kitchen. But he was left only with chi, whose alcohol content was very low.

  Aritomo didn’t want to drink tons of it.

  He turned away. Servants cleaned his room. The dead man had been brought out, but the traces of the struggle were still obvious. The Japanese marched into the washroom, which the time travelers had built themselves, with a stone basin, only roughly hewn out of a rock, and a simple wooden pipe that provided water in four different places above the basin. There was a real drain that also could be closed. In theory, the pool was large enough to take a bath in, and building a proper bathhouse was one of the plans the Japanese have been pursuing since they moved in. They made themselves really comfortable. Their own rooms, kitchen, bathroom, a courtyard for sporting activities, their own guards and their own assassins, who chased you at night.

  Aritomo opened the water inlet. The cool water came from a tank, filled three times a day by servants, who brought the water from a nearby reservoir. He washed the blood off his hands, then carefully cleaned his blade, which he had picked up from the floor and which had been strangely difficult to carry, as if the assassin’s death tugged on the blade and pulled it down.

  The steel was excellent and would not rust quickly, but there was no replacement for the foreseeable future. The knife had saved his life, and for that reason alone it deserved intensive care.

  It also helped him collect his thoughts and calm down. When the blade was clean and dry, he felt a little more relaxed than a few minutes ago. The weapon was now easier in his hand, cleaned of the murderer’s spirit. He missed a mirror in which he could look at his unshaven face. The only real glass mirrors remained in the boat as a special treasure. The Maya knew polished metal, mostly silver, which the wealthy used as a mirror. It was an interesting thought that these were much more valuable than the Japanese specimens, if only because of the material used to produce them. He had one in his room from which he shaved.

  Aritomo found himself thinking of his few remaining razor blades and what he would do when the stock ran out. It was by no means unusual for a naval officer to grow a beard, which was easier to prune with the local knives. Would that make his eternally childish full moon face more masculine?

  And why should he waste unnecessary thoughts on it right now?

  He finished his cleaning. When he stepped outside, it was still dark, although it wouldn’t be too long before dawn. His blood pressure had calmed down, and he felt that he could actually lie down again, but the thought of returning to his tainted room filled him with reluctance.

  He stepped into the courtyard. There were now only Mayan warriors and two Japanese, both armed, who had taken over the guard. They only nodded to Aritomo, and he waved it away. No need to make a report. They were good for the night.

  He sat on a stone bench and looked into the crystal clear night sky. No one else seemed to share his restlessness. The noises of the night were clearly audible again. At dawn, the King would get an idea of the situation and, Aritomo suspected, warriors would visit the noble whose servant had been the assassin. Mayan justice was sometimes very quick, and the punishments did not include too many gradations. Those who did not speak were tortured until they admitted everything, including that what they had never done.

  This thought made Aritomo shiver that night.

  2

  Helmut Köhler felt the bile rise inside him. He clung to the railing, stared into the roaring abyss of the sea, felt his stomach crawl up his throat, as the Gratianus slid deep into the trough, and then the familiar gag came, and he opened his mouth. Almost nothing came of it, since he had completely sacrificed his stomach contents to Neptune an hour ago, but the violent, cramping nausea didn’t want to subside. His desperate moan subsided in the roar of the storm, and when the cramp let off and he opened his eyes again, which he had tormentedly closed, he stopped trying to empty something that was long empty.

  He took a deep breath, felt the current weakness ease somewhat. Köhler was not the only one on board the expedition fleet’s flagship who fared so badly. This was the third day they were stuck in the storm, and even the most experienced sailor was beginning to push his limits. There was little sleep, and when he tried to find some, he was restless, always interrupted, in violently rocking hammocks that threw you against the comrade or the wall and sometimes with force on the floor. There was hardly anything to eat, and when there was, it was cold, often wet, and those who felt sick hardly managed to eat anything solid anyway. Yesterday, Köhler had dipped ship rusks in thin wine and swallowed them somehow, but an hour later they came back up
,

  Everyone’s strength was weakening. They all prayed for calm weather, if only a break in the constant romp and roar. The ship was in better shape than its crew. In any case, the Gratianus showed no signs of not being able to cope with the forces.

  Köhler looked up and saw Navarch Langenhagen, who was standing on the bridge next to the gubernator, tied up like all of them, because it often happened that a breaker struck the rail with great power and tore an inattentive crew member with him. Screams, cries for help went down in the deafening rustle of wind and waves. But the tightly woven ropes that everyone had to secure himself with and which slid along the guide rails next to the railing had already saved many a life. It was still the case that most seafarers could not swim and deliberately did not want to learn it in order to exchange the torture of a slow death in the sea by drowning as quickly as possible.

  Köhler was able to swim.

  And he never wanted to give up either.

  His stomach felt the same. He sensed another cramp coming. He straightened up, stuck his face into the spray, felt the cold dampness smack against his skin and an icy shiver run down his body. He was wet to the bone, no matter how much he tied the thick leather coat around his body. The masses of water that flowed down his collar were enough to soak him completely.

  The nausea in his stomach subsided again. He closed and opened his eyes, wiped his wet face with his wet hand, which did nothing but feel like he had done something, a senseless gesture, expression of weak defiance. Then he felt someone pull on his arm.

  Magister Aedilius stood next to him. The ship’s doctor, he was one of the graduates of the Medical Academy of Ravenna, the forge for medical staff that the doctor of the Saarbrücken had founded and which trained the best healers in the world. Aedilius was no longer a young man but of strong stature and had served on many ships before being assigned to the expedition. His gray-brown beard was damp, and he was wearing a hat that encircled his bald head like a second skin.

  He did not say anything. He should have screamed to make himself understood. But his eyes expressed concern and a little pity. Aedilius held out a leather bottle to Köhler, with the opening closed, and when he took it, he felt a pleasant warmth in his hand, refreshment enough without having to uncork it. Warmth and dryness. There was little that Köhler wanted more at the moment.